


On the Threshold of Humanity

by Imagined



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Major Character Injury, POV Stephen Strange, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, writer forgot how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26729512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagined/pseuds/Imagined
Summary: ‘’If you had to choose,’’ Tony asks, his voice gravelly low, ‘’between doing this, helping people, and, you know, being with the person you love? What’d you pick?’’There’s only one answer, really, that Stephen can give him. The only honest one, because Stephenhadchosen, and he’d never found any reason to regret it. He’d been born to do this, he thinks, mostly because he’d chosen to do this, and he could never have loved anyone who wouldn’t love this part of him, too.‘’I already have,’’ he says quietly, ‘’and here I am.’’Or:Five times Stephen leads the superhero life with Tony, with all the otherworldly weirdness and problems it entails, and one time he realizes they're no less ordinarily human for it.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 26
Kudos: 140





	On the Threshold of Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> *swoops in with bachelor's degree and cup of tea after barely posting anything for a year*
> 
> how surprised are we that I was prompted by the IronStrange haven discord to write this, like, five months ago or so? not at all? good. it's been a bit of trouble getting back into the whole writing-thing (the only thing I've been working on is [The Sorcerer of Ephemeral Colours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293229/chapters/53242588), which, yes, will be updated soon) but here we are: two days away from my first deadline in my new degree, which is of course the exact moment I'd get back into fic writing. It's a little different than what I used to do, I think, but we'll see where we end up. have fun!

1 /

The alien hisses at him, even as Tony holds it back from attacking him, its scaled face almost completely hiding the dark eyes. Stephen has a way of seeing things that others can’t, though he almost wishes he didn’t. It doesn’t come from space, this alien, but from another universe, closely aligned with their own. A universe in which, if he had to guess - and he does, but it’s an educated guess - things didn’t end so neatly with the whole invasion on Earth.

The problem with having an infinity of universes in which you’re doing something with very little chance of success means that you’re also failing infinitely, and in the majority of them. Infinity, of course, also means that they have infinitely won, but - well, infinity is still a concept which makes everyone’s eyes go woozy, so Stephen doesn’t really discuss it with most people. Anyway, there’s a great many universes in which things aren’t as well as they are in the one he calls home, and it’s not the first time he’s had that proven to him.

Stephen had decided, very early on after the Snap-That-Undid-The-Other-Snap, that other universes are something he doesn’t really want to dabble in anymore. He’d only done it once or twice, before - it’d been bizarre and wonderful and disturbing, like most things were when it came to the Mystic Arts. Now, however, most of their universe aligns with universes that weren’t successful.

Their direct neighbours are universes of destruction and grief, and sometimes it’s like a soft mourning song being sung on the other door, and Stephen ignores it. At other times, it’s like the elegy is being screeched and someone is thumping on the door, and those unsubtle invitations Stephen ignores even more.

This is why Stephen dislikes it when the universe shatters in some points, because it’s invariably up to him to fix it, even if he decided to ignore it. He can hardly ignore it when Tony calls him, however, a well-concealed hint of concern in his voice when he talks about crackling electricity and purple flashes in the sky, followed by the presence of some unwanted aliens.

And here they are, then. The Avengers are containing the aliens, assisted by Wong and some of the other sorcerers that happened to be there when Tony’s call came, but it’s up to Stephen to open up the rift they came from, send them back, and then close the rift again with mystic superglue and magic duct tape, so to speak. 

‘’You nearly have it?’’ Tony asks, and his mask is closed, so Stephen can’t tell how he’s feeling, really. It somewhat sounds like he’s gritting his teeth, and the alien is struggling and fighting back. It has four arms, sharp scales glittering and screeching against the metal of Tony’s armour. The paint from the Iron Man suit is now scratched, small silvery lines appearing along the chestplate, and Stephen has to refocus on what he was doing.

‘’Almost,’’ he says, one of his hands aimed at the alien and another one to the ground. Pushing down is easier than pushing up, even if gravity is a law that the multiverse sometimes likes to break, like it’s as simple as speeding, grumbling at the inevitable ticket, and then doing it again the next time.

He closes his eyes, to better direct the power, and the rift opens like a wound in the earth. Distantly, he can hear Tony’s voice, shouting commands at whoever’s containing the other aliens. It’s an odd sensation, as the universes shift with every alien who is returned to their home. It’s like a tingling behind his ear, somewhat pleasant but also feeling a bit off, like it’s a spot that he’s not sure he needs to scratch. 

Only when he feels Tony’s hand on his shoulder, Stephen feels secure in letting go. Purple flashes again, but Stephen brings his hands together to close the rift, imaging it as thread and needle stitching up torn clothing. There’s an itch in the universe, as something that was broken once can be made again but never unbroken, but at least there’s the guarantee that it won’t break again anytime soon.

‘’All done,’’ Tony murmurs, as if Stephen’s a child who had scraped his knees and Tony the worrying adult with band-aids and soft-spoken reassurances.

‘’Good,’’ Stephen says, because it _is_ good, and there’s not much else to say when one has just closed a rift between universes. ‘’You were right to call me.’’

‘’The Avengers can do a lot of things, but this is one thing we’d rather not touch,’’ Tony says wryly, who is, technically, not an Avenger anymore. Besides, Stephen thinks Tony is the sort of person who is smart enough to eventually find a way to close such portals, anyway. From all accounts, he’d done well enough with a portal in New York, back when aliens were still a new thing instead of an everyday occurrence.

Stephen doesn’t mention Wanda Maximoff, the one Avenger who’d be able to deal with portals, mostly because no one is really sure where she is and mostly because it doesn’t do to linger on hypotheticals, even if such alternate universes are the realm that Stephen deals in. 

‘’Right,’’ he says, realizes he’s still kneeling on the ground, and gets up. His gloves are dusty from how he pushed them to the ground, the fingertips dark with soggy mud. He pats them on the Cloak, ignoring how it flies up in protest and shakes the specks of sand off itself. 

‘’So, anyway,’’ Tony says, and glances at his ex-teammates. ‘’Crisis averted. Good job, everyone. There should be a transport to the Compound soon, or maybe some sorcerers want to make you portals, if you ask nicely.’’

‘’We’ll have a meeting at six,’’ the Falcon says, or more accurately, the Captain, since Sam has taken up the shield for some time now. He’s not Steve, that is certain, though Stephen isn’t so sure that’s bad. 

Tony grimaces, but doesn’t protest. They’re all still getting used to it - new alliances, new Avengers. New leaders, as well; Stephen hasn’t failed to notice how everyone still looks to Tony, who’s officially resigned and only there for emergencies. Sam Wilson leads the Avengers, but everyone remembers Tony Stark with the Infinity Gauntlet, iron in his backbone and dust in his eyebrows - Tony Stark, the man who’d fixed it all and had sacrificed an arm in the process.

‘’I won’t be there,’’ says Stephen, and Wong stands by him. He’s dusty, too, and there’s a line of blood running down his cheek. ‘’But I can take you back, if you’d like, Tony.’’

‘’I should stay here for a while,’’ Tony murmurs, and looks at the destruction around them. They’re somewhere in Belgium, in the middle of a field where the grass is dry and the trees have been unearthed by the five-minute invasion. ‘’Clean-up is coming, and they’re my guys, so I should -’’

‘’You should go home,’’ Stephen interrupts. ‘’Like everyone else is. Have dinner with your daughter. Take a break from the supernatural and alien horror-show. As your doctor, I recommend a good night’s sleep.’’

Tony’s smile is crooked, all lips and no teeth, soft and sharp in one. ‘’You’re not my doctor, really.’’

‘’Then I recommend it as your friend,’’ he says lightly, and it’s as easy as breathing to call Tony his friend, despite everything. ‘’One who is a doctor. I’m serious.’’

Wong is still beside him, his arms crossed, even as the other sorcerers and Avengers are disappearing in portals burning orange. ‘’We’ll take care of this,’’ Wong says gruffly. ‘’Take your own advice, Stephen.’’

He’s probably right. Stephen just shrugs and creates a portal. It stutters into existence, and it’s a far cry from what he just did, the phantom pain of closing a rift still echoing in his hands and crying out behind his eyelids. 

Tony just shakes his head at him. Stephen half-expects a witty rebuttal, but it doesn’t come, and instead, Tony just disappears to the other side of the world. Stephen follows.

~*~

2 / 

In the beginning -

there was light, if Stephen’s to believe his old teacher at church. But Stephen doesn’t consider his own beginning to have been at birth, as much as that’s a beginning for some. He doesn’t consider his own beginning to have been at medical school, even though he once would have. He doesn’t even consider his own beginning to have been when he arrived at the Sanctum, begging for medicine and then knowledge - praying on both knees for something holy to be true, even though he was a rational man, despite his prayers still scoffing at anything mystical.

In the beginning, he watched fourteen million possibilities unfurl, the realities crashing into him like waves on a rock, and so he stood like a rock, watching and watching and _watching_ as everything on Earth was lost, time and again.

Right up until it didn’t, and he opened his eyes, and realized that it had not been millions of years but rather five minutes, and that Time is nothing more than an abstract to make sure everyone’s life is organised.

The beginning is when Stephen fully realised the extent of the Mystic Arts and his role in life - a momentary speck, maybe, but one that could overflow all dimensions and pick a world he would like to live in. He just needed to trust in Tony Stark - in his heart, in his intellect, in his love for those who’d be gone and those who had yet to be born.

‘’How many did we win?’’ Tony had asked, and his grip on Stephen’s arm was the only thing that grounded him in what was generally considered to be the present and is now considered the past, although Stephen feels too large and too small to give much thought to the meaning of time any longer.

‘’One,’’ he said, and prayed one more time, until he turned to dust, like his teacher at church had said all of them would.

The beginning was the end for most people, and Stephen was mostly unaware of the following five years. He’d dropped from one battle into the next, and as he watches Thanos, this alternate-Thanos who’d rather crush the entire universe than see his own flawed plan being undone, fight for the death of half the universe.

Tony snaps, eventually, and he burns, the smell of his scorching skin reaching Stephen when he kneels before him - like a prayer, like devotion, like he can’t just let Tony die even though that’s what he’d seen before.

Tony’s eyes are blank, but he’s still whimpering in pain, his eyelashes the only part of him still capable of moving.

‘’Tony,’’ Pepper says, and she kneels next to her husband, and her eyelashes move too, trying to get rid of unwanted tears.

‘’I can heal him,’’ Stephen says, and Pepper must be unaware that it’s mostly a prayer - no, not a prayer, a command to a power that Stephen now knows rests in the universe, a power he can now access even if he still can’t understand it. She looks at him, and she mouths something, and what she is saying _is_ a prayer, but she aims it at him, and Stephen doesn’t know what to do with that.

Instead, he decides that just because he’d seen Tony die - well, the beauty of time is that what is considered the present and the future is capable of change, and he can make what he saw yet another universe.

So he focuses, and his hands glow in a cold light as Tony doesn’t die, as the Gauntlet slips from his fingers and lands with a soft thud in the ground, even as Stephen still kneels and somehow, in some way, creates yet another possibility.

One, he’d said. One way to save the world. But they’ve saved the world, and he feels like he’s playing chess against the universe. Sometimes, one has to sacrifice a piece to win, and he knows that, but when the game’s been won, sacrifice becomes useless, and -

well, in the end, there was still light, wasn’t there? 

Tony inhales sharply, and he trembles, and he says ‘’Strange?’’

‘’Yes,’’ Stephen says, and he frowns as he feels Tony’s arm is beyond saving. He kept it there, though - he may not have a Stone anymore, but the Time that ran through Tony’s veins had listened to him anyway, and most of the damage had been undone. Most.

‘’Is this what you saw?’’ Tony whispers, but then his eyes fly to Pepper, and she is sobbing now, hugging him and Stephen doesn’t think Tony will listen to his answer.

‘’Yes,’’ he lies, anyway, and gets to his feet. Tony’s head is buried in Pepper’s neck, now, and the boy Peter is crying and coming to embrace him from the other side. Rhodes is trembling, too, more from emotion than from anything else, and soon Tony can’t even be seen from where he’s being hugged by his makeshift family.

Stephen exhales, and turns back to Wong. The Sanctum is his own home, if not necessarily a family, but it’s comfortable and it’s Stephen’s, although he hasn’t been there in five years.

‘’I’m hungry,’’ Stephen says thoughtfully, as if they didn’t just restore the world from before, in as much as it could be restored. Like Tony - it lives again, even if it won’t be the same anymore. ‘’I could go for a tuna melt. My treat. You coming?’’

Wong shrugs. ‘’As long as you’re paying,’’ he says, and if he sounds a bit more gruff than usual, Stephen won’t say anything about it.

Tony breathes, a few feet away, and the future’s a wonderfully unknown thing.

~*~

3 /

Somewhere after the beginning, if one considers time to be a linear and chronological thing, and somewhere after the near-catastrophic rift in Belgium that Stephen had fixed, Tony comes to see him.

This, in and of itself, is not an unusual occurrence. Stephen may not be Tony’s doctor, but he’s Tony’s… something - friend, he’d said, and that’s the term he’ll stick with - and somehow, Tony started drifting to the Sanctum after the Snap-That-Undid-The-Other-Snap. At the time, it did not puzzle Stephen as much as it surprised him - he saved Tony’s life, in a way, even if nothing else bound them together.

Tony’s definition of ‘bound together’ turned out to be something else entirely, something that was mostly along the definition of ‘going to an alien planet together where one of us hatched a plan that involved the other one of us nearly dying to save everyone and it’s an experience that can’t really be shared with other people not involved in this unique event’. At least, that’s how Stephen interpreted it, but Tony hasn’t actually talked about the alien planet in anything but jokes that cut a bit too deeply to be actually meant as funny.

All of this combined means that Stephen checks up on Tony once a week, looking over what remains of his arm after it was amputated and verbally sparring about any noteworthy events, personal or otherwise, and slowly learning more about him. 

Right now, referring to the moment usually considered the present, Tony’s there too, and that wouldn’t be odd except for the fact that the present is in the middle of the night. It’s not a _problem_ \- Stephen keeps odd hours, often peering over books until realizing he’s missed both lunch and dinner and will be late for breakfast too if he doesn’t leave at right that moment - but something is off, because Tony hasn’t kept odd hours since he became a father. Not as far as Stephen had seen, when he was on Titan, and he’d seen a lot. Most of it was accurate, too, though the universe had seen some funny ways of changing up some things, as it always does.

The windows are opened, because it’s the middle of the summer and the Sanctum is an old building that isn’t well-ventilated at all. There’s a gentle moonshine that lights up the room, because the New York Sanctum also doesn’t believe in lamps, and the two candles that Stephen has lit do little for the seating area. The Cloak is floating near the curtains, enjoying the soft relief of the night-time breeze.

Tony’s standing with a cup of tea in his hands, the steam coming off of it also affected by the wind coming in from the window, wearing only a white shirt and a pair of pants decorated with oil stains. The candlelight plays tricks over his face, softening the edges of his pallid face and brightening eyes that refuse to look at Stephen.

‘’I could have lamps installed for you,’’ Tony offers, even as he refuses to sit down and lets go of his tea with his left hand to grab a manuscript Stephen has left lying around. ‘’Get a team here, crack of dawn. You’ve got all these old books, you know, and the fire hazard in these old buildings is terrible. What if you forget to put out a candle one day, because, I don’t know, someone opens up a portal in the middle of the city and you’re answering the call from a damsel in distress, and poof, you come back from a job well done and your home’s all gone up in smoke. Or fire, but smoke follows. And then it’s all gone.’’

Stephen is used to rambles from Tony, and really, he has several degrees in medicine, which more than prepared him to follow people’s inane rambling. A skill for a lifetime, though at the time he’d been mostly annoyed at his professors’ lack of consistency. They have nothing on Tony, most days, but Tony makes up for his rambling by having rambles about interesting things.

‘’We’ll be fine without electrical lamps,’’ Stephen says dryly, and sits down, and ignores the way the Cloak makes an offended gesture at him. If the Cloak wants to have electricity, it can take it up with him later.

‘’Is this a - a weird sort of ritual for you people?’’ Tony asks, flailing the manuscript around as he talks, ‘’correct me if I’m wrong, seriously, but what _is_ it? The mysterious scenery, you’re all just wanting to be, what, Harry Potter-esque, or -’’

‘’The Sanctum existed long before Harry Potter was a word on a page,’’ Stephen says, and still doesn’t ask the real question, and he’s not sure if he should, so he doesn’t. 

‘’Still,’’ Tony says, and seems to realize he’s waving around a five hundred-years-old fragile manuscript, and he puts it down with a more tender move than Stephen has seen from him all night. ‘’If you want to keep the aesthetic, you can do it without - you know, the whole dark-and-gloomy business.’’

‘’Excuse me if I’m not taking your advice on aesthetics,’’ Stephen snorts, because Tony is a great many things, but he’s not subtle in the slightest. The hot-rod red armour is a dead giveaway, but even without it, everything about Tony Stark is noticeable, even now. 

Tony stills. ‘’You should,’’ he says accusingly. ‘’I’m modern. Peter came to me for interior design on his dorm room, you know, and he was right to.’’

‘’You mean you designed and moved in everything before he even had a chance to see it?’’ asks Stephen, remembering Tony a few weeks earlier on the same couch, eyes vivid and a mischievous tilt to his lips as he’d laid out his plan. Now, Tony frowns at him, and Stephen thinks that the kicked-puppy look shouldn’t work so well on a man of Tony’s age and respectability. 

He should know better than to think Tony does anything the way he’s supposed to, however.

‘’Doesn’t mean I did a bad job,’’ Tony defends himself, but the point is lost now, and they both know it.

Stephen smiles wryly. ‘’There’s a reason Pepper is in charge of everything to do with your house, you know,’’ he points out.

At that, Tony sags down, and his free hand goes back to his cup of tea, still steaming and still more of a distraction than something actually meant to be drunk. And Tony sits, which he almost never does, unless it’s a serious talk. And Stephen can count all of those on one hand.

Stephen puts down his cup of tea. His hands tremble, and so the cup makes more noise than it should as it hits the hard wood. He winces, although it’s not nearly loud enough that anyone else in the Sanctum would hear. Tony does, though, and it’s enough to make him look up, startled.

The light of the candles is reflected in his eyes, and something unreadable passes Tony’s face, and he looks away again.

‘’Why are you here?’’ Stephen asks, even though he really doesn’t want to ask. Tony and him, they know not to discuss certain things. The only times Titan or Thanos are discussed are in witty non-jokes, or in sharp retorts that demand not to be answered, and there’s the echoes of those conversations in the silence where Stephen runs his fingers over where Tony’s arm used to be when he’s checking how it’s healing.

The thing is - when they’re non-talking about those topics, he knows what it’s about. He can guess what they’re leaving out, and he can sidestep all of the things he shouldn’t say and comment on what he should. Right now, he feels like he’s barreling right into something that should’ve been discussed subtly and doing about as well as Iron Man would do at blending in during an undercover job.

Tony just shrugs. ‘’You don’t ask. I mean, I heard the question. But normally. You don’t ask.’’

And anyone else would, is the implied piece that he’s not actually saying. Stephen’s not Tony’s closest friend; he’s not Rhodes, or Bruce, but he’s something else entirely. He can’t deny it, even as his concern grows, but he’d rather have Tony comfortable, even if that means Stephen can’t fix his problem for him. It’s not his life to save while it’s not in mortal danger.

‘’Alright,’’ he says, and before he realizes he’s doing it, he’s creating a portal. ‘’I meant to investigate some disturbances. Not quite rifts, but just making sure they won’t become rifts, either. Want to come?’’

Tony isn’t an Avenger. Technically, he’s retired, a back-up if there’s a need for one, but on the whole, supposed to spend some well-earned days kicking back and relaxing. But he’s not here every week just because he likes Stephen that much, even if Stephen would miss the visits, and he’s not maintaining the Iron Man suit so fervently just to be back-up. It’s Tony’s nature to be out there, to help, and if Stephen recognizes it, it’s only because he feels the same thing.

Besides, Tony’s not the type to sit back and relax unless his chair has rockets underneath and metal blaring inside some speakers installed on the sides of it. Once you’ve learnt how to fly, Stephen knows, summoning the Cloak to him with one swift movement, there’s really no going back. And Tony’s been flying for a long time.

‘’Wouldn’t dare let you go on alone,’’ Tony says, more glee in his voice than Stephen has heard since he arrived, and it’s really not surprising to see his prosthetic arm gaining some rockets.

It’s still Tony Stark, after all.

~*~

They’ve been at it for a few hours - Stephen opening up portals, Tony doing energy readings with his glasses. If there’s something going on, Stephen fixes it, but so far Tony hasn’t had to shoot anything. Stephen hadn’t really expected otherwise; asking Tony along was more a distraction than anything else.

Not that it’s a good distraction. Stephen has just mended and closed something that wasn’t a rift but might have potentially become one. Some universes are threadbare from slipping against each other, and in that case, he plays a seventy-year-old lady knitting it all back together, except he weaves with the Mystic Arts instead of wool. It doesn’t make for a nice Christmas sweater, but at least no one is violently thrown from one universe into the other, and that’s warming in its own way.

Tony is more silent than he usually is, even as the sun sets and the moonglow is taken over by brighter lights.

‘’She doesn’t want me to do this anymore,’’ he says eventually, just as Stephen sits back to look at his work. His glasses don’t sit on the top of his nose, as they so often do, but they’re hiding Tony’s eyes, giving him some distance even as Stephen tries to close it.

‘’Pepper?’’ he asks carefully. Tony doesn’t move at all.

‘’She thought I was going to be giving it all up,’’ Tony says, almost monotonously. ‘’Truth to be told, I thought I was going to, too. But then I see Morgan, and I’m afraid that - somehow, that it’s going to be messed up if I don’t help. And then I tell myself everyone is more than ready for whatever can be thrown at you, I mean, we’ve got more people than ever that are ready from some world-saving action, and then I just can’t. I’m planning to put the suit away, and then I can’t sleep. And if it’s out there, ready to be used, she can’t sleep. And I don’t know what to do.’’

Stephen shifts towards him. He’s not really an expert, and Tony might have gone to Rhodes for better advice - but he’s here, he’s been here the entire night, spending it with a professional sorcerer and amateur relationship advisor, if he can even be called an amateur in the first place.

He knows a few things about putting things together, though. And about Tony.

‘’You’ve talked with her, I guess?’’ he asks.

Tony’s head moves imperceptibly. ‘’Yeah,’’ he murmurs. ‘’Didn’t work out so well. She’s not - it’s not something to compromise over, this kind of life. I thought she’d always have my back, and she does, you know, but she just wants to settle down. She can accept a lot, but I’m not sure if she’ll accept this. If there’s some kind of way that I can - well, some decision we can make on how we’re going to make it work.’’

‘’You’re not going to give it up?’’ Stephen asks, and it’s not that odd a question, considering Tony’s back-up status in the superheroing business, but Tony looks up in surprise, and his glasses glide down his nose to show the widening of his eyes.

‘’Right,’’ Tony says. ‘’That’d be the solution, right? But I can’t. I tried, but it’s - it’s not something I can give up. I thought I could, but then again, I thought I could give up dairy - I mean, it's a habit. It’s part of me. I can’t.’’

‘’Many people feel that way about cheese, and then they turn out to be lactose intolerant,’’ Stephen says dryly, and shakes his head. 

Tony grins, and that’s enough of a victory for him. ‘’Being Iron Man doesn’t make me bloated,’’ he says. ‘’That’s the big difference.’’

Stephen just shrugs at him. ‘’Tony, if being Iron Man is something that you need to do, that’s something you can’t ignore. If it’s something that you can’t compromise over, then you need to figure something else out. And you invented time travel - I’m sure you’ll manage.’’

Tony looks thoughtful now, his glasses perching on his nose as he looks towards Stephen. ‘’If you had to choose,’’ he asks, his voice gravelly low, ‘’between doing this, helping people, and, you know, being with the person you love? What’d you pick?’’

‘’There is more than one way to help people,’’ Stephen says, and he thinks of Christine, and these days, his heart only does a little lurch at the thought of her because it’s used to doing that. He learned to let her go long ago. 

‘’But you picked this way,’’ Tony says, insistent on getting an answer. He leans forward, and Stephen can almost feel the comfortable heat radiating from his body. Tony’s eyes are open and eager, and Stephen can see the tiny creases between his eyebrows and his nose, from age and laughing and living.

‘’I did,’’ Stephen agrees easily, and feels a thousand universes underneath his scarred fingertips, almost as tangible as Tony right before him. 

‘’So would you?’’

There’s only one answer, really, that Stephen can give him. The only honest one, because Stephen _had_ chosen, and he’d never found any reason to regret it. He’d been born to do this, he thinks, mostly because he’d chosen to do this, and he could never have loved anyone who wouldn’t love this part of him, too.

‘’I already have,’’ he says quietly, ‘’and here I am.’’

Tony’s glasses slip back on, hiding his reaction. He leans back, and Stephen exhales.

The night goes on, and Stephen mends more universe, like the doctor he is. Tony stays by his side, right up until morning comes.

~*~

4 / 

This is the crux of the matter:

Stephen has never considered himself to be a superhero. He’s not an Avenger or a Guardian of the Galaxy; he doesn’t have any powers that no one else could learn, even if he has innate skill. Then again, lots of people have lots of talent for other things; the Mystic Arts are no different from skill in drawing, in that regard.

He just happens to be affiliated with the Avengers because he’s somehow become the Sorcerer Supreme, and he just happens to be friends with Tony because fate had thrown them together, and then they’d continued on with dry remarks and arguments about things that didn’t really matter, and sometimes conversation about things that did matter in which a large percentage of the conversation, by mutual consent, actually never got mentioned aloud.

The thing is that he _is_ affiliated with the Avengers, who _are_ superheroes, and they’re certainly not hesitant to use his and the other sorcerers’ help whenever they deal with something supernatural or are otherwise in over their heads. Yet another rift has appeared, but this time it’s not in a rural area in Belgium but in the middle of a busy street in Boston.

Another thing that might have been prudent to mention, Stephen thinks dazedly, is that it hadn’t been aliens this time. Instead, the universe that had so rudely broken into their own had been - damaged, somehow, damaged beyond anything Stephen has seen before, with Time and Space and Power out of balance.

It’s a future he’d seen, back on Titan, and it was one he’d hoped would never come to fruition. But infinity is a large number, and of course this future was bound to play out somewhere. It’s not surprising Stephen had never managed to fix this rift; it’s wild and changing any time, and any rift that Stephen would’ve fixed would have come back much worse. This is the fall-out of a nuclear war, but then one made by the Infinity Stones, and it’s one of the most dangerous things that could happen.

Which is why Stephen had gone into the rift the moment he’d seen it, even when Wong had shouted at him. The Avengers were on scene, with some more back-up, trying to keep debris the size of a car to fall on buildings and people. Since the debris was also influenced with the power of the Infinity Stones, it wasn’t an easy thing to do.

He’s not exactly sure what happened after. His head hurts, that’s the main thing, an arrhythmic beat thumping behind his eyelids, and even with his eyes closed he sees flashes of purple and blue. 

He can still sense Time, the Infinity Stone he’d carried with him before it was destroyed, and it’s like it’s pulling at his wrists and crying at him to wake up. Stephen wonders if he’s back on Titan, and if he opens his eyes, he’ll see Tony standing before him, and he’s going to have to do these last few years all over again.

When he does open his eyes, Tony’s indeed there. But his armour is a little newer, one arm completely robotic, and even though he’d looked concerned on Titan, the tilt of his eyebrows and the desperate crease in his lips now is far more telling than it ever was.

‘’Stephen!’’ he’s shouting, although the sound only registers with Stephen several seconds later. He wonders if it’s the fault of Time, if it’s been destroyed and now time and movement will never match up again. If this will be a universe in which people’s lips move first and their words come ten seconds later.

Wong appears, and now it really can’t be a figment of Stephen’s imagination anymore, because imagining Wong to look concerned - well, the closest thing Wong has come to worried is when the whole ordeal with Kaecilius went down, and even then he’d been mostly annoyed by Stephen’s ineptitude.

A warm hand comes to rest on his forehead. It’s Wong’s, he thinks, and he blinks. 

‘’The rift,’’ he says, but his tongue is heavy and his lips tingle. ‘’What’s - Tony?’’

‘’You have to keep still,’’ and Tony’s eyes are dark, but they’re lighter than the rift Stephen just spent time in, and he can still feel the aftershocks of awing power in his veins, and he can’t remember what he did, but he also doesn’t see any more debris flying behind Tony’s head. He can’t see Wong anymore, but he also doesn’t have the energy to look for him.

He’s still disoriented, but he can focus a bit now. Tony’s curls are matted to his forehead, and Stephen can feel himself half-lying in his protective embrace, and there’s other Avengers and sorcerers surrounding them. He can feel their gazes on him, even as they’re scuffling to do something else.

Another spike of hurt echoes through his head, and he closes his eyes, even though it doesn’t help. He feels heavier than he imagines the debris to have been, like all the Infinity Stones are pressing down on him.

‘’Safe?’’ he asks, and his voice is croaky, but it’s the least of his concerns when he doesn’t even really know what happened to him and Tony is looking at him _like that_. 

‘’Yes, everyone is safe,’’ Tony says, even though he’s still looking like the world might be ending, despite it being only Stephen who might possibly be ending.

If this were to be the end - well, Stephen doesn’t really believe in the end as a chronological thing, not when he’s seen how Time really works, and he thinks even if this is the end, maybe he’ll see another day where he can read a manuscript and feel the Cloak brush against him, asking for attention. Another day where he’d watch the sun rise and realize he’d been working through the night, only to see this as a reward. Another day in which he’d offer Tony something to drink and get an incredulous look when he gives him a steaming cup of coffee made of coffee beans from Whole Foods Market for a couple of dollars instead of getting them from Italy.

He is starting to see how the Ancient One felt, because he’d think that even if this is the end, and even if he got to see those things despite this being the end, he’d miss the chance of not being able to make any new memories. Never seeing the look on Tony’s face if he _did_ , in fact, get quality coffee beans, despite the meagre savings of the Sanctum.

He is not a superhero. He’s just human, and he _wants_ , and Tony’s leaning over him, and he’s the real hero of this story.

‘’What’d you talking about coffee for, huh?’’ Tony says quietly, and once again, they’re not talking about whatever’s important; that is, if Stephen’s end is important, which might not be the case at all, in the grand scheme of things. Still, for him it’s kind of a momentous thing, which explains why Tony’s not saying anything about it.

Stephen hums, and he wishes he could remember what he did so he’d know if the pain skyrocketing in his body is worth it. 

‘’Seemed like as good a topic as any,’’ he says, because telling Tony that he hadn’t even realized he was talking aloud would be talking about the things they don’t talk about.

‘’Stay,’’ Tony says, but Stephen closes his eyes, and dozes off.

~*~

When he wakes up, he’s in the Sanctum. There’s an absentminded thrum accompanied by stabs in his mind, like the pain is dozing and then suddenly sits up in realization before falling back asleep. 

Wong is there, sitting with his arms crossed. His expression is unreadable, though that’s not unusual. Stephen wonders if he’s been sitting there for a long while, or if it was just now. There’s a book beside him, which makes him think the former. 

‘’The rift?’’ he asks, and his voice is a croak that makes him wince. He sits up, which goes well enough, even if Wong’s expression shifts minutely at the sight of him.

‘’Fixed,’’ Wong says steadily. ‘’Though not easily.’’

Stephen can’t remember much of that moment. He only remembers the concrete he’d lied on, tiny bits of gravel and dirt finding their way into his clothes when he’d been in too much pain to focus on anything in particular. Tony had been there, he knows.

‘’No,’’ he says, feeling his muscles protest and the tiny stabs all over his chest. His hands are trembling again, and he thinks that if he were to stand up, he’d throw up all over Wong. ‘’I can’t imagine it was.’’

‘’Stark carried you out of there himself,’’ Wong says, and now there’s a definite weight to his gaze. ‘’He refused to let you go until we got you here, with a doctor as well. Didn’t leave until I made him. Had to mention his daughter to get him to go.’’

‘’How long -’’ Stephen asks, feeling woozy and slow and not liking it one bit.

‘’Three days,’’ Wong murmurs. ‘’We were worried. Idiot. I’m not sure what you did, but you saved the day and almost died.’’

‘’I don’t feel that bad,’’ Stephen says, because he’d expected ‘on the brink of death’ to feel worse. He feels slightly better than when he’d crashed his car, because he might be hurting, but the pain isn’t as intense as it had been back then. He remembers all of that. Now, it just feels like he’s been in a car crash, and when he’d actually been in the car crash, it’d felt more like the end of the world than it now does.

Wong eyes him again, and Stephen shifts on his bed and winces. The mattress feels soft underneath his sore back, and he sags into it even though he doesn’t want to. If he could, he’d make Wong look like the grumpy librarian he usually is, because this staring contest means that Wong is not saying things he wants to say, and Stephen has enough things he’s not saying to Tony already to start doing something similar with Wong.

‘’Don’t do it again,’’ is all Wong says eventually, and he stands up rather abruptly. Part of Stephen aches at the sudden movement, almost as if he was moving himself, and he flexes his numb fingers in response. His nails catch on the soft material, and Stephen doesn’t think he ever owned a blanket this warm.

‘’It’s what we do,’’ Stephen says, before Wong leaves, because somehow he needs to say it, and it’s true. Stephen knows that it’s not about him, and if he’s closing these rifts - well, that’s worth it. Even if they’d rather not think about what they’re willing to give up in order to do what they do. 

Wong waits for a moment before he opens the door. It creaks a little, a familiar sound by now. ‘’I’m not sure what you and Stark are doing,’’ Wong says, ‘’but I’m glad he has your back, Stephen. Even if he’s going to break his own doing it.’’

Stephen thinks he might understand why Pepper and Tony didn’t make it, in the end - Wong’s wrinkled clothes and the twist of his lips is already enough to make Stephen hate himself a little. Wong is his closest friend in this life he’s chosen for himself, the one person Stephen can come to for help. Wong is undisturbed and dry-witted, sharp and steady as a rock. For him to be shaken, and for it to be Stephen’s fault - well.

‘’What are you talking about?’’ he says, trying to refocus on what Wong is saying, but the door is already falling shut, and it doesn’t take long for Stephen to fall away, lured to dreams by the softness and warm comfort of his bed.

~*~

The next time he wakes up, Tony’s sitting there. 

‘’Afternoon, Sleeping Beauty,’’ Tony says, and his smile is crooked but his laughing lines are as deep as ever, and Stephen blinks at the welcome sight.

‘’What day is it?’’

‘’Tuesday,’’ Tony says easily, and leans forward like Stephen’s company is a treat he’s been eager to get. ‘’You’ve been sleeping for four days, but the doctors say it’s to be expected. You weren’t in a great shape, so to say, but now you’re all fixed. Or you should be, soon. Got a few broken ribs, so you’ll want to keep an eye on that, and a slight concussion. The doctors will tell you all that when they get back, anyway, but you know, you might feel a little, ah, uncomfortable. Got you a little something, by the way.’’

He gestures to somewhere behind him. Stephen struggles to sit up, trying not to press his eyes shut as his body protests, but then there’s Tony, impossibly soft and careful hands helping him settle in his pillow. Stephen decidedly doesn’t watch Tony while he does this, and instead cranes his neck in the direction he’d pointed at earlier. A shiny black coffee machine stands on his desk, the only new thing in this room by at least fifty years.

‘’What?’’ Stephen asks. He doesn’t drink coffee that often, and he can’t remember ever mentioning wanting to have a coffee machine to Tony. Maybe it’s for Tony, then, for when he comes over - except, he’s reminded, it’s not as if Tony is over _all the time_ , just a little more often recently, but he and Pepper are split up now so that makes sense, right?

Tony blinks at him now, and he hasn’t moved from his position. His hands are still on Stephen, one under his back and one on top of his knee on the blanket, but Tony doesn’t seem inclined to move away. Stephen wonders if he even has noticed it, and holds his breath so he doesn’t shift.

‘’Coffee,’’ Tony says, and now there’s an uncertain edge to his voice. ‘’You - when you were - that’s what you said. I just thought - you don’t have to keep it.’’

Coffee. Yes. Stephen must have been more out of it than he thought, and all the memories are still vague and jumbled, but he remembers. Mostly, he remembers Tony’s expression, the tenderness of his words, the sharp edge to his desperation, and doesn’t allow himself to think about it.

God, Tony. Stephen moves, and he puts his own hand over Tony’s. ‘’I’ll keep it,’’ he says lightly, trying to convey everything he’s trying to say despite the fact they don’t talk about it, ‘’for when you come over.’’

Tony swallows. Stephen can see it from here, and neither of them move.

‘’Sure,’’ Tony says quietly. ‘’For when I come over.’’

Stephen smiles. 

~*~

5 /

The first time that Stephen kisses Tony is not the time that Stephen and Tony would tell you is the first time they kissed.

In all truth, it’s not a pretty first kiss. Tony is in the middle of a sentence, and his hands are moving too fast for Stephen’s reactions to catch up, and it means that Stephen’s mouth is half on Tony’s when Tony accidentally punches him in the ribs that are still healing four weeks after Stephen’s injury. And he does it with his mechanical hand, too.

Before the first time that Stephen kisses Tony, if one considers Time a chronological thing - which Stephen doesn’t - Tony is upset. 

‘’Why’d you call me over?’’ Stephen asks when he sets foot in Tony’s lab, in which he’s been all of four times. The Cloak demands to be let go in order to play with Dum-E, and Stephen feels oddly naked without it. 

Tony just shrugs. His face is pale and he hasn’t shaved, and the artificial light does nothing to make him look healthier. He’s wearing a navy MIT sweater, old and far too big for him, and Stephen wants Tony to stop breaking his own back to save Stephen’s.

‘’I need -’’ Tony starts, and then he stops. Stephen waits patiently - there seem to be a lot of things that Tony needs, a shower and some food somewhere at the top of that list. Tony’s face does a thing, and Stephen would call it a grimace on anyone else, but Tony’s is more desperate and loathing. 

His hands are hidden in the sleeves of his sweater, and it’s unlike him, because Tony’s always moving with his hands. Stephen can see the slight movement of them underneath the material, flexing and unflexing, and when he looks back at Tony’s face it’s only to see him staring.

‘’Tell me what I can do,’’ Stephen says simply, and takes an abandoned stool near Tony.

Tony looks away again, but his hands are still flexing. Unflexing. Flexing. He’s wearing white socks, both grey with grime, the left one with a hole near his little toe. Tony’s toe nail neatly sticks out of it, like it has decided to live a different life, away from all its toe-friends.

‘’The rifts,’’ Tony says eventually. ‘’Ever since Thanos - well, you know. You’ve been fixing them, answering our every call.’’ He pauses for a moment. ‘’The Avengers’ call. You know what I mean.’’

‘’Yes,’’ Stephen says, drawing out the syllable. Tony has a point, but he’s not necessarily good at making it in a concise argument. Stephen has read some of Tony’s scientific papers, and even there, Tony’s tendency to ramble had been apparent. 

Tony bites his lower lip and still doesn’t look at him. ‘’You were hurt because of one,’’ Tony says, brusquely, like he wants to forget that ever happened. Stephen brushes over his own ribs. They’re still tender, but he should be healed soon enough.

‘’Most of us have been hurt by one of the rifts at one point,’’ Stephen points out, because it’s been going on for a while. Since Thanos, that’s true. ‘’But we’ve been closing them.’’

‘’What you said,’’ Tony starts, before Stephen’s even finished his sentence, ‘’is that they’re infinite. Everything is infinite. So we can close as many as we want, it’s not going to end, right? And it’s because of me. I fucked up, didn’t I? I’ve been - all night, I’ve been up, doing calculations, trying to figure it out where these rifts come from. And the only conclusion I can come to is that I did something.’’

‘’What do you mean?’’ Stephen asks, and he lays his hand on Tony’s arm, their skins kept apart by the sleeve of a threadbare sweater.

Tony moves as if he’s been struck, reeling back and hiding his face in his hands. ‘’I fucked up,’’ he says again frantically, his words muffled but audible enough. ‘’When I snapped the Gauntlet. When I removed Thanos’ army, something went wrong. That’s when these rifts started, that’s when - I didn’t _mean_ to. But something must’ve happened, and that means - it means it’s my fault, Stephen. Again! I keep trying to - make up, make it right, whatever, make it a better world for Morgan - and for Peter, and for Pepper, still, and for _you_ , and everyone, and I thought - if I’d - but this is all wrong, right? You see it, right?’’

Tony falls silent after that, and he looks up again. There’s a shine to his eyes that means he’s either close to doing something very stupid or he’s going to be silent and do all the things he’s supposed to do but without any feeling at all, and Stephen wants neither of those options.

‘’Correlation doesn’t mean causation,’’ he says, but it’s like a murmur, and it’s enough to get Tony worked up again.

‘’Don’t say that to me,’’ Tony says, almost snarling with viciousness, and throws up his arms. His robotic arm glints in the light. ‘’There’s - I played with the powers of the universe, and I survived. I shouldn’t even have survived, right? Did you see this coming? How far did you watch, exactly, when we were on Titan? Did you see the rifts? Did you know - know about my divorce with Pepper? Did you know - the coffee? Your own injury? How much _have you seen_ , Stephen? How much is predetermined, then, right? Is this all my fault, or is it some higher good? What’s your Sanctum saying, because I’m sure as hell not - I can’t - Stephen, this can’t be my fault. This can’t be my fault, too. How much did you see?’’

Stephen takes a step closer to him. ‘’Nothing’s predetermined, I think,’’ he says lightly, and takes another. He’s standing right in front of Tony, then, and he’s never seen anyone more frightfully confused. ‘’You saved the galaxy when you snapped the Gauntlet, Tony. I knew that you’d do that. You’re always striving, always thinking, always fixing. It’s who you are. We’ll fix this, too. I don’t need a Time Stone to see that.’’

Tony’s shaking his head, and his hair is long enough to be curly around his ears, and the strands bounce along with him. ‘’We don’t have a Stone anymore - this is not your job to fix, Stephen, and I can’t believe I keep messing up - nggh -’’

Stephen kisses him, and Tony hits him in the ribs, and that effectively brings a stop to that.

‘’No need to hit me,’’ Stephen whines, his ribs stinging at the impact. He presses his hand against them, in a vain attempt to have it hurt a little less, and Tony just stares. ‘’Or maybe you did. Can you -’’

‘’Yes, no,’’ Tony says, and leans forward. ‘’Fuck, Stephen. Are you - do you need a doctor? I didn’t break that again, did I? You have to - Stephen, _warn a guy_ , what are you - did you mean that?’’

‘’I think my answer largely depends on your own answer to that,’’ Stephen says dryly, leaning against his stool again. The pain in his ribs is subsiding, but hearing something from Tony that would - stop, whatever he’s doing, whatever Stephen has _wanted_ to be doing for some time now - he’d take it, but he’d rather have a shred of dignity intact, if it has to be that way.

Tony stares at him again. ‘’You’re an idiot,’’ he says.

Stephen raises his eyebrows. ‘’Says who?’’ he asks sceptically. ‘’Tony, you’ve got to calm down about this. The rifts are dangerous, yes, but what would you want to do? Fix everything by yourself? You saved us all and you almost killed yourself doing it - and maybe you did create the rifts. Maybe you didn’t. Has it ever occurred to you that it could’ve started earlier?’’

‘’But I was so out of it and I was still wearing it,’’ Tony says. ‘’I might’ve - I don’t know, _wished_ for it. It was - the Gauntlet, I can’t describe what that was like. I barely remember anything from that moment, so I could’ve done it.’’

‘’Tony,’’ Stephen says, and now that he’s already given into this one thing, he just pushes himself closer to Tony. Tony seems hesitant, but he’s not pushing him away, so Stephen exhales and brings their foreheads together. They breathe together for a few moments.

‘’I shouldn’t have had that power,’’ Tony says quietly, like he’s telling his deepest nightmares to him. Maybe he is. ‘’I’m afraid of misusing it. I’ve done it in the past and not known about it. I can’t do that again. I can’t be repenting for the rest of my life, Stephen.’’

‘’You didn’t,’’ Stephen tells him, and doesn’t move. ‘’When I saw - you died, Tony. The future I saw, by all rights, you wouldn’t be here today. And that was the end of what I saw. But I’m thankful every single day that there’s not such a thing as a fixed future. We’re free to make choices, and we’re free to change our own future. I don’t know if you caused the rifts or not, but it’s - even if you did, for the sake of your argument. I’ve never seen anyone as brave as you, or as good. I was ready to stake the future of the galaxy on your willingness to be a good man when we were virtually strangers. It’s the safest bet in the world.’’

This time, it’s Tony who kisses him.

‘’I’m just -’’ he says, in between kisses, ‘’Stephen - you’ve - this is - you understand, right? You understand.’’

Stephen kisses him again, savouring the feel of Tony’s upcoming beard, the smoothness of his cheeks, the coldness of his metal fingers resting against Stephen’s neck, even the twinge of pain in his ribs.

This is the whole crux on which their trust and friendship and love, whichever one of those came first, is built:

Stephen has seen Tony’s life unfold fourteen million times, and even if he hadn’t, he understands him better than he understands himself.

~*~

+1 /

There are five coffee machines, now. Stephen had insisted the one was enough, but Tony had gleefully pointed out that the other members of the Sanctum snuck into Stephen’s rooms to get a cup of coffee from the machine.

Besides, Stephen is pretty sure Tony worked together with Wong. Morgan was probably in on the plot, too - the last time she’d come around, her smile had been far too knowing when Tony made a joke about the quality of coffee in the Sanctum.

Stephen still doesn’t drink it. But it gives Tony a reason to come around, or at least, that’s what Tony claims.

‘’I’ll convert you one day,’’ he says, and despite the fact that it’s summer and he’s lounging like a cat, draped over his chair in the sun, he’s still drinking steaming hot coffee. The gardens of the Sanctum are empty except for them - the weather is too nice to be training, anyway.

‘’Have you ever thought about investing in an ice coffee machine?’’ Stephen offers in amusement. ‘’Wong keeps asking me for money to go to Starbucks. I’d tell him to get a side job, but he keeps complaining about how bad of a friend I am.’’

‘’Good man,’’ Tony says, his eyes closed as he basks in the heat. ‘’No ice coffee. We’re not teenage girls, Stephen, so tell Wong to grow up. Don’t tell him I said that, though. I don’t want to be turned into a frog.’’

‘’He’s more creative than that,’’ Stephen says, and presses a kiss to Tony’s forehead. ‘’No rifts in a month, right? Seems like your device is working pretty well.’’

Tony smiles lazily, opening only one eye and sitting straighter to plant a fleeting kiss on Stephen’s mouth. ‘’Correlation doesn’t mean causation,’’ he says. ‘’But yes, it’s working out well so far. By the way, I’ve got that team building thing for the Avengers this afternoon - you made sure you’re free after, right?’’

‘’I am,’’ Stephen says, and feels lighter for Tony’s answering smile.

There is, though he hadn’t seen it before, a certain kind of understanding that Stephen had thought stemmed from the dangers Tony and he share. Stephen understands Tony’s need to be the best man he can be, the best father and the best man and the best hero to watch your back in a fight. What he hadn’t realized is that underneath all of that, Tony’s still so - human.

It’d been there, of course, when Tony had broken down over how he’d felt he’d let down the world. Over how he’d failed Pepper as a husband and Morgan as a parent, and how he’d refused to let it show. Tony’s a hero in all meanings of the word, Stephen has always maintained, but it’s not because he puts on the suit when he is needed.

Tony’s so ordinarily human that he represents everything Stephen has been trying to save, all he’s trying to maintain, like the entire reason for existing is just this being - lying in the sun, ignoring what needs to be done until it can’t be put off, knowing the favourite dessert of the person who you’re going to dinner with that night. 

Stephen knows rifts and alternate universes and fighting gods and meeting dragons. It’s nothing to him to find a portal to another world and close it, only wondering for a second what universe lies beyond it. There’s nothing he hasn’t seen, and there is very little he cannot imagine. Aliens and wormholes are the day-to-day job, as are demons and nightmares come to life. Stephen has become immune to all of these, because the extraordinary becoming mundane is the only way to keep up with the world that has become his - theirs, really, when it all comes down to it.

He wasn’t surprised to have fallen in love with a superhero, really. Tony shares his world, and he fits this way of life - an extraordinarily gifted man with inhuman power is exactly who Stephen needs as his partner. He hadn’t expected for Tony to remain so humbly human, as well, as if Tony laughing at his jokes and murmuring about quantum physics is more extraordinary than taking out aliens together. Simple and humane, when Tony is looking over career options with Peter and getting bribed by Morgan to have cheeseburgers for dinner, or when he learns how to brew the tea that Stephen likes.

Most of what they do isn’t related to what the world knows them for. Stephen knows just as well that Tony’s going to be complaining about the car ride to the restaurant they’re going for their anniversary, because cars aren’t fast enough for Tony anymore since he discovered flying, and that he’s going to order ice cream after, and that Stephen is going to order the Stark Raving Hazelnuts flavour just to mess with him.

‘’Good,’’ Tony only says, and he makes no move to get up, even though he’ll be late for his meeting. He’s not wearing sunglasses, this time, and Stephen is free to stare at his face all he wants these days. ‘’You’re thinking very loudly, Stephen. Want to share with the class?’’

‘’Just thinking about you,’’ Stephen says lightly. ‘’You’re going to burn if you don’t put on some sunscreen.’’

Tony makes a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘’I never burn,’’ he says. ‘’Italian heritage from my mum’s side, you know. You might want to get some sunscreen, though. Red’s not really your colour.’’

Stephen blinks. ‘’My cloak is red,’’ he reminds Tony.

Tony’s answering grin is sharp. ‘’I know,’’ he says, and rolls over. ‘’So, reminder, I’m picking you up at seven. Don’t get lost in a spell again, or I’ll know. Spellbooks count, too.’’

‘’I’m not the one consistently late,’’ he tells Tony, but Tony just presses a kiss to his nose. ‘’Tell Peter I said hello, and make sure to tell him to come around again on Tuesday if he wants me to help with his paper.’’

‘’Yeah, sure,’’ Tony says, and grins. ‘’Oh, wait - wear your red shirt tonight, right? Okay, I’m leaving, bye! I’ll see you tonight!’’

Tony, being unequivocally and unchangeably Tony, is gone before Stephen even gets a chance to retort. ‘’I thought red wasn’t my colour!’’ Stephen yells at him.

A faint rumble from within the Sanctum comes and Tony peeks out of the door again. ‘’It’s not,’’ he says, ‘’I just want to make sure you don’t overshadow me with your good looks. I have an image to maintain, Stephen, and I’m not having you stand in the way of that. Did you know I’ve consistently been voted the best-looking superhero for two years straight? Well, after Thor, but let’s be honest, he’s a literal Norse god, not really a superhero, so it doesn’t count.’’

‘’Of course it doesn’t,’’ Stephen says dryly, but he kisses Tony back anyway when he comes in for one, and Tony doesn’t back down either.

Tony’s a little late for the Avengers meeting, afterwards, and they end up being late to the restaurant as well later that day, where Tony orders ice cream afterwards and Stephen orders the Stark Raving Hazelnut flavour, and they’re not anything more than they have to be.

The crux of the matter is this:

It’s simple and mundane, and all the more extraordinary for it, Stephen decides when Tony rolls his eyes when their order comes up, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> is there anything more vulnerable  
> than to say, ‘’I’m only human, after all?’’  
> there is no braver thing you can be  
> than to be on the threshold of humanity


End file.
